


Astral Training

by Solunadawn



Series: Testimony of the Old World [2]
Category: Storm Hawks
Genre: Alternate Universe, Dreams?, Finn mentioned, Gen, Junko mentioned, Piper mentioned, Radarr mentioned, Stork mentioned, Training
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-18
Updated: 2018-04-18
Packaged: 2019-04-24 18:30:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,687
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14361168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Solunadawn/pseuds/Solunadawn
Summary: Aerrow reflected on an odd set of memories he had before he took the Sky Knight trials.Dreams shouldn't be that lucid.





	Astral Training

**Author's Note:**

> More lore on Aerrow's interesting situation in this alternate universe. Will be part of a series.

If there was anything Aerrow found odd in his memory, it was during the months before he took the Sky Knight trials. He was training in preparation to take them, but he never felt confident enough that he would actually pass them. Not with his level of skill.

While Piper, Junko, Fin and the others were supportive of Aerrow and more than happy to help...He didn’t feel like he was pushed hard enough. One night when the Condor was docked on an uninhabited terra Aerrow left the ship while the others were sleeping to go out and attempt practicing his skills solo. The air was calm, and there weren’t many clouds above the Wasteland’s cloud cover. The moon was full and looked like it would absorb all the darkness in the sky with its size alone. With that amazing view and the eerie silence of night the scenery before him felt so unreal.

Aerrow walked out to the edge of the terra and stood before the moon’s ever illuminating glow. It was...oddly serene. He looked downward though as he forced himself to remember that he had to train. He couldn’t slack off. He had to become stronger.

Just then, he heard the rustling of grass beside him and Aerrow turned his gaze.

There sat a featureless humanoid of cyan color. It lacked ears, it lacked a nose, it lacked a mouth, and eyes, and brows… even hair and nails. The only notable things it had were sporadic holes through its head and body, all clean punch throughs that had the same texture and color on its insides as its outsides did. It was like a living statue.

Aerrow should’ve been shocked. He should have been confused. When it turned to look at him the redhead should have been _terrified._ Yet… he was calm.

The figured stood up and Aerrow turned his body to face it. It’s body had an unearthly glow that made its color stand out, even in the light of the moon’s radiance. It gestured its right hand over its shoulder, mimicking grabbing the hilt of a sheathed blade and tilted its head toward him as if to say “You do the same”. Aerrow blinked and then pulled out his daggers, taking a stance before looking at the figure as a silent question of if this is what it was asking for. The humanoid nodded and gestured the pulling out of it’s blade and sure enough a blade made of a smokey darkness was drawn out of nothingness and into its hands.

It took a stance and Aerrow realized what it was doing, he actually knew the second it had gestured grabbing a hilt. This being wanted to spar with him. It wanted to teach him, train him. Aerrow waited on no cue to start attacking, he bent his left knee and pushed his right foot into the ground, back lowering as he moved his right arm to the left side of him and his other arm upwards as he shot himself into a sprint. He bolted at the being as he slashed his dagger across with his right arm, swinging it to the side before taking another step forward and tearing his left arm down to cleave the humanoid. It used a diagonal block to protect itself from the slash, backing up from the impact of the blow. When Aerrow’s cleaving slash swung down the being tilted its sword to a full horizontal position and moved forward enough to have the underside of Aerrow’s dagger meet its blade which it eased in, softening Aerrow’s momentum before using the blade like a staff and forcing it and Aerrow back, making the young hero stumble backwards as the humanoid used that knockback to take another step forward, swinging its whole upper body to the side as it used its right arm to hurl its blade over and up enough to knock Aerrow into a roll, falling on the ground.

“Aagh-!”, He cried as he was knocked off his feet.

Once he got up into a kneel, he saw the entity standing patiently looking at him.

It was wordless, it didn’t even have a mouth to speak with. Still, despite having nothing more than a body, limbs, and a head Aerrow could feel his mind speaking in its place.

_’Need to dodge faster. Need to react faster.’_

“Right.”, He muttered in response as he stood to his feet.

Aerrow started again, running with his body low, arms out and charging towards the humanoid. It swung its blade down attempting to smash down Aerrow like smacking down a bug but Aerrow shifted to the side, letting his arms relax as the momentum moved his arms to the right. Once they swung far enough Aerrow took control of his limbs again to direct its flow now mixed in with his strength over and struck his daggers down into its wrists.

The entity’s blade burst into smoke as it knelt down from the force of Aerrow’s blow. The redhead stopped in his tracks the second he realized his sparring partner needed to take a second.

It’s hands weren’t injured. Aerrow didn’t expect them to be injured. He didn’t even know what it was made out of yet he had no fear using real weapons on it. He knew so many things he shouldn’t’ve at the time yet it never occurred to him to ask why. But at the time all he focused on was the now, and now it had gotten up and nodded while patting his shoulder. He knew it wasn’t over. 

The being pointed over towards the rest of the terra and Aerrow could see two more beings like the first one, holes in odd places, an unearthly cyan hue, all featureless humanoids. 

The next few hours had brutal sparring practice that was even faster and unrelentless than before, only stopping when Aerrow was out of breath lying on the ground. Aerrow would sometimes intentionally stay there to reflect on what he did and mentally make notes on what he had to improve before attempting getting up. Each time he tried to get up whenever he was knocked down he was immediately struck at by the humanoids, encouraging him to dodge and think on his feet. All three of them never stopped their attack on Aerrow in those few hours, giving Aerrow a claustrophobic situation to navigate and fight through. It was more intensively constant movement, improvisation, and quick thinking than any routine a dance troupe could conjure up. Since his coordination wasn’t near that of a dancer Aerrow had gotten more bruises and scrapes than he could count.

By the time all three of them decided to stop Aerrow was coated in sweat, covered in minor injuries, and his clothes grass stained and muddied. Despite all that, he was happy his silent, voiceless cry for help was answered.

There wasn’t any memory after that however as the next thing he knew he had woken up in his bed. His clothes were where he usually left them, and he had no injuries whatsoever to speak of. It was a dream, but a dream in a part of a series of dreams he had that night since.

It gradually went from ground battles to learning the ins and outs of Aerrow’s Air Skimmer III Ultra, like what damage affects where effects how the bike moves and functions, the max limit of the crystals powering his Skimmer, how fast he can drive it, how fast he can dodge with it, how fast he can dodge _on_ it, how well he can balance on the Air Skimmer...he had to do so much training with his vehicle. He was glad that once his vehicle training dreams were over his skybattle ones began.

The skybattle training had a big curve in difficulty. Aerrow couldn’t count the number of times he was knocked off of his bike and onto the terra, or the Condor. He was beaten so badly it seemed like a miracle in hindsight that he even managed to develop his skills into keeping up toe to toe with the humanoids at all. 

Aerrow did it though, and once he got to that level of skill it was on the last week. That’s when they started doing battles bad enough that it felt like Aerrow was in a warzone. Just one man against a squadron of trained professionals. When he woke up every day that week he was stunned at how real the pain in his dreams felt. The beings had no bad intentions, but it didn’t change the fact that some dreams had him with a broken bone or a dislocated shoulder. It freaked him out a bit when that searing pain vanished the second he awoke in his bed breathing heavy, his body damp with sweat. Limbs no longer stinging, but wet and clammy against the air inside the Condor.

Despite that, he was grateful for the dreams. Those dreams had improved his performance in the waking world exponentially. Finn, Junko, and Piper couldn’t believe it. Radarr was just as surprised, but more happy than anything. Stork...Didn’t notice the difference (not surprising, since he’s mostly on the Condor). It was amazing, if dreams could be like that all the time he wouldn’t have minded having them every day. 

Once Aerrow took part in the trials he passed with flying colors. He was so thankful to Piper, Finn, junko, Radarr and Stork for the day training and moral support. He was also very thankful to those dreams he had, even though he hadn’t had them since, he was still grateful they occured at all.

They were odd dreams, but he was happy he had them. Why did he get them though…? They were much too convenient and far too specific, its like they were intentional. Dreams aren’t intentional, so what made them like that?

…..

He was thinking too much. 

They were dreams, he hasn’t hallucinated before or since, and he hasn’t seen or heard of things like that existing on Atmos. It’s nothing to fret over.

...Right?


End file.
